DWTS 11, Week 1 – Miscellaneous Bits of News
Occassionally I am driven to post interesting little tidbits of news I find around the web. It’s not a statement of whether I believe the posted news is actually true or not. Sometimes I just find stuff funny. 🙂 Like this bit from PopEater.com:
First? The Hoff Shocked ‘Dancing’ Fans Dropped Him So Fast
David Hasselhoff was feeling hassled after becoming the first celebrity voted off ‘Dancing With the Stars’ on Tuesday. Friends and insiders close to the ‘Baywatch’ star and the hit show tell me David was shocked and humiliated by the surprising results.
“David thought he had a bigger fan base and just can’t understand what happened,” a friend of The Hoff’s tells me. “He honestly thought he had a chance to win this competition. He would have never agreed to even participate if he thought for one second he would be the first to go.”
And just like his dance moves, the bruised actor didn’t exactly accept his defeat with grace.
“David is blaming everyone but himself for the vote,” an insider tells me. “Backstage after the show, he was blaming the producers, the lighting guys and even the costume department.”
Cheryl is writing her blogs for MSN.com this season – interesting to hear her talk about the height difference with Rick. Click the link to read the whole thing:
This year is sure to be a lot of fun since we have a really great cast. There are so many different personalities and every season is so different, so it’s fun to learn more and more about all the cast members. This year is going to be challenging for me because I’m dancing with someone quite tall. I’ve never danced with a man so tall before in my whole dancing career. For me, it’s going to be a different challenge than I’ve ever had on the show. I’m partnered with Rick Fox who is 6’7” and I’m 5’4”, so our height difference is insane.
Rick is doing well so far in rehearsals and if he has his fan base behind him and he doesn’t do bad and continues to improve every week, then I think we might have a chance to make it pretty far. The goal going into every season is always to win or make it quite far in the competition, and I see a lot of potential in Rick. The first few days I was a little scared since I was thinking, “this guy is so tall and I don’t know what I’ll do with him,” but I just decided to start at the beginning and taught him how to walk gracefully and how to use his height and long arms to our advantage. The difference in height is so dramatic, the shoe department of the show had to make me custom 4” heels so I could at least reach up to his chest level. I have always competed in 3” heels, and even that 1” is a big difference. It’s been a challenge, but it’s been a great challenge for me the last few weeks. It’s been fun to mold someone of his height into a dancer.
Mark’s writing his for USA Today – it’s kinda short and I don’t want to post the whole thing, so follow this link to read more:
What a show! I’m shocked that David Hasselhoff left. I’m really going to miss him screaming in the hallways of our rehearsal space with his booming voice! Seriously though, his partner, Kym (Johnson) is a dear friend, and I’m bummed she couldn’t stay longer.
I’m really proud of Bristol. She’s come so far in such a short amount of time, and I’m excited to continue to teach her as the competition carries on. We have the Quick Step this week, which I think will suit Bristol nicely. This dance is all about elegance and class, which she oozes.
I found this article from The Guardian interesting, and it’s clear that I’m American through and through because I prefer DWTS. 🙂
Dancing With The Stars v Strictly: which has the fancier footwork?
Which do you give top marks to? The glitz and glamour of the US show or the British version’s stern tellings-offThought you’d had enough celebrity-dancing launch-show excitement for one month? It appears not. Strictly might have unveiled its celebrity lineup a fortnight ago, but tonight its bigger, brasher, American cousin Dancing With The Stars hits UK screens. And as ever, this is going to be a series worth watching.
Everything is so much shinier and slicker on the US show than it is in Strictly. There are the hosts: Tom Bergeron who is more adept at reading an autocue than not-doddery-doddery-he-is-apparently-not Bruce Forsyth; and Brooke Burke who, while surprisingly inept at proffering a microphone to the person she’s interviewing, at least has expertise of the competition – she’s a former DwtS champion. Then there’s the music: while Strictly’s Dave Arch and his wonderful orchestra are great, the Dancing with the Stars band is conducted by legendary MD Harold Wheeler. And, of course, the celebrities.
And therein lies the main difference between the two series. In DwtS, you can expect to see maximums given out by the third or fourth week of the series – presumably because American audiences like to see their celebrities do well – with Goodman and his fellow judges Carrie-Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli (who’s even more camp and screechy than he is on Strictly) happy to overmark.
On Strictly, however, you’ll be lucky to see a maximum score of 40 prior to the semi-finals – although since Arlene Phillips left the judging panel we’ve been solely reliant on Craig Revel-Horwood to bring a modicum of sense to the proceedings. Add to that the fact that American ballroom dancing seems to be judged on different criteria half the time (watch their version of the Viennese waltz and you’ll see) and it’s no wonder that the US celebrities seem to do better than their UK counterparts.
Thanks Heidi. Love the blogs. As for the Popeater article, they sensationalize so bad sometimes and they are at their worst in the Hoff article (imo). I don’t believe any of that to be true. I’m sure he was disappointed. But, I don’t think he blamed anyone else but himself. I thought he handled it quite well and was a class act at that.
I’m slightly shocked about the Hoff, but I don’t think he would’ve reacted that badly if he was voted off first, unless he was drunk. Didn’t say he was either going to win the whole thing, or get voted off first so he could date Kym lol.
As for DWTS vs. Strictly, I like both versions, but I don’t think strictly’s dancing is really at a much higher caliber in dancing than DWTS. The differences between the VW is we see mainly the American Smooth version of the ballroom dances than the international, even though it says we follow international standard rules. We also use just about the same songs as strictly, I just think the strictly band kinda sucks compared to DWTS, but that’s not saying much. Tom is definitely > Bruce, wish they would just reitre that guy, his jokes aren’t even that funny. Tess is > than Brooke though, she seems to have better personality and interviewing chops. I also think the choreography on Strictly is a bit bland and the latin on DWTS blows Strictly’s latin out of the water. (think Lisa Snowden’s 40/perfect score cha cha and compare it to someone like Mario Lopez or even Mel B’s cha chas which didn’t get perfect scores) I also think Randall does a excellent job with the costumes on the show and it reflects the dance and songs much better than strictly. Unfortunately I think the Strictly costumes kind of seemed to be thrown together and not much thought is put into it. I guess in the end, I feel like Strictly acts really snobby to DWTS and it really isn’t that much better like they claim. Plus, they really really like Brian Fortuna, who I didn’t think was that good to begin with and his choreography seemed really bland but they love him over at Strictly. He also seemed to mess up a lot during pro dances like messing up lifts and stuff. (He dropped kym once or twice and on Strictly he did a lift with Kristina and it kinda botched but he somehow salvaged it)
Steve – I don’t know how much SCD loves Brian these days since the pretty much relegated him to pro dances and he quit the show in protest. There was lots and lots of talk of how they wanted Derek – whether that started in response to the Cheryl Cole business, or if the tabs read the SCD message boards where some have pined for him (while other said he is too flashy) and regurgitated it (they are shockingly willing to make shit up over there), I don’t know. For all I know they could have tried to get him – but the consensus on their message boards was that he would never do it because the American pros are paid WAY better than the SCD pros – not to mention only a truly lovesick fool would ditch a show with 21 million viewers to go to a show that barely makes 8. And yes, there was a period of time where I considered that Derek could be such a fool. 🙂
Poor Cheryl – I honestly have no idea how she’s managing to dance in 4″ heels the whole time. I was in pain for weeks after graduating from 2.5″ to 3″ heels for competition. I’m wondering if they may have given the shoe a bit of a platform, as opposed to jacking up the heel so far…seems like it’d be a bit less torturous on the feet. Oh well – props to Cheryl!
Steve, do you happen to know who does the costuming for SCD? If they’re rather lackluster, as you say, I’m wondering if the designer is Chrisanne – very high-quality, Britain-based ballroom costumer that’s been around for years, but does unfortunatley seem to tend more towards the old-fashioned and simple, in terms of costumes…they’re also a bit better known for ballgowns than they are for Latin costumes.
Liked The Guardian article. And it’s absolute true. I’ve watched both, and DwtS production is WAAAAAY better than any SCD franchise show around the world.
I can’t even envite you to watch “Dança dos Famosos”, brazilian version of SCD. The production is a completely shame, even it’s from the greatest TV channel from here, TV Globo.
Maybe you guys posted the link already but Derek is doing a Q/A with Annie at EW.com each week.
Yeah, I posted it on PDH – I’ll post his next one (and Maks’) as they come up this week.
I read that Dance Sport International does the costumes for the pros and Chrisanne does the costumes for the celebrities. A bit strange to have 2 different companies to do costumes for pros and celebrities. I understand that DWTS uses LeNique also, but mainly for the guys, like suits, tails, tuxes, etc.
I guess the Brits like the really conservative, less flashy part of the show and want to be less showy, but I think that mentality has made them think that their quality of dancing is always better than ours. I don’t necessarily think that, I just think when a pro has a crap partner on DWTS, they dance around them and make them look entertaining while the Brits kind of give their celebs really basic step and it looks a bit boring and they don’t do anything to either cover or liven up the dance. I do think their ballroom is better, but latin over here is by far better than their’s. Kind of strange since in the ballroom world, their group of pros are in a way of a higher caliber, but not by much. Somehow their choreography is meh, only some come with some outstanding routines.
There was also a big deal about the costumes getting too skimpy last series of Strictly, which makes me think they would have a field day if Edyta ever showed up on their show lol. A part of me wants them to send a pro from their show over to DWTS to see how they fare with our audience. Who knows, maybe they’ll be happier with the pay and big input on costumes 😉 From what I’ve seen, the pros seem to not have much say in the costumes on Strictly.
happy the hoff got voted off. he is totally sickening. would now love to see margret cho and florence go home. margret is a joke herself and florence is too old. what is she trying to prove? corky should hang up his dancing shoes……
sorry to see hoff go actually. i wanted to see more crazy antics. and yes…he was drunk off his ASSSS most of the time.
I have watched many episodes of SCD and the reason there are higher scores is because the US stars are 2x as good as the British stars. We probably cast more advanced dancers like MYA and Nicole. However, all around the US stars have better raw dancing ability. It is in the water.
Jeanmom – really? David was drunk on premier night? I’ve obviously heard of his …er….problem, but do you really think he’d been drinking that night? Anything’s possible, of course, especially from The Hoff, but it hadn’t occured to me that that might have been the problem with his Cha Cha – granted, maybe a little naive on my part. If true, huge mistake – and inidicative how deep his drinking problem runs. I wish him all the best, hope he seeks treatment.